


Slumber Till Day

by Schwoozie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, F/M, Fluff, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3482339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schwoozie/pseuds/Schwoozie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beth does nothing but take care of others; it's time for someone to take care of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slumber Till Day

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I said I need 29382 scenarios of Daryl taking care of Beth? Here you go. 
> 
> I might potentially write an epilogue to this, or a version from Beth's point of view. Depends on how procrastinatory I want to be.
> 
> Thanks to Mary, as always.

It's his first night off from guard duty in a week, and as expected, Daryl can't sleep.

It’s something he’s never been good at, sleep. Started cause of the fear he’d always go to bed with, of waking to find his father poised above him with a belt or his fists; he’s sure some shrink would have plenty to say about it. Now all he knows is that he wishes he could stand up and tell the council to suck his balls—he isn’t Rick, he isn’t going crazy, and he sure as fuck isn’t going to sleep, no matter how many nights off they give him. But then he’ll look at Hershel’s concerned face and Carol’s raised eyebrows and grumble off, longing sometimes for the days when he could say fuck y’all without guilting himself out of it.

It’s started a light drizzle when he finally decides enough is enough; he can be restless inside the prison without further destroying his leather to boot. He shakes himself off like a dog at the entryway before scraping off his boots and continuing to the cellblock, already running through the routes he can take without disturbing anyone.

He’s just turning towards their block when he hears it. He's spent so long walking the fences that at first he thinks it's a walker; his bow's halfway up by the time her soft words filter in, low murmurs he can't understand, but in a voice he recognizes.

Beth Greene is crying.

“Come on, baby girl, please,” Daryl hears as he walks closer, following the noises echoing off the walls to the kitchens, the farthest space from the sleeping cells. Approaching the doorway on silent feet, he lowers his bow to his side and peers around the corner into the darkened room.

The space is lit by the one fluorescent bulb still functioning and the candle Beth must have brought with her, balanced in its makeshift tray on the table where she sits. Her skin looks especially grey, even for the dim light. Her whole body is slumped, very much like the melting wax of her candle. She presses a fussing Judith to her shoulder as she rocks, more like an elephant in a cage than a soothing mother. Her eyes are red-rimmed and tears stand out on her cheeks.

“It's bedtime, baby, alright? I already sang all your favorites; I promise I'll get you one of those suckers you like.” Beth's hand rubs absentmindedly up and down the baby's squirming back. When Judith continues to whine, Beth tilts her head back and closes her eyes, a few tears squeezing out the edges. “Just please go to sleep Judith,” she begs.

“Y'alright, girl?”

Beth jumps, startling a little cry out of Judith, and Beth quickly resumes her rocking to head off a crying fit. She raises her other sleeve to her eyes, rubbing them furiously. “I didn't see you, Daryl, you want something?” she says thickly.

“Heard you crying.”

Beth makes a forced smile, tossing her head in an attempt to get some hair out of her face. “That was Judith. Having a hard time going down, aren't you?” She's almost convincing in her chipper baby talk; if her voice didn't crack in the middle and her lip tremble, Daryl would almost pretend to believe her.

“How long you had her for?”

“Few days,” Beth says. She smiles in a way that doesn't reach her eyes.

 _“Days?”_ Daryl asks. “Where the fuck's Rick? Carol?”

“They've been busy, settling all the new Woodbury people.” Beth bounces the baby a few times, looking down in her lap. When she looks up and sees Daryl still watching her incredulously, she forces another smile. “It's my job, Daryl. I don't mind it.”

He only has to look at the way her hands tremble to make his decision.

“C'mon,” Daryl grunts, swinging his bow around so it hangs from his back. He steps forward, gesturing. “Gimme the kid.”

Beth frowns, holding Judith a little tighter. “Why?”

“Cause I don't wanna be scraping baby brain off the floor when you keel over and drop her.” Beth blinks a few times. Daryl shifts his shoulders, looking down, trying to ignore the flare in his cheeks. “Just gimme the kid,” he mutters.

Beth rocks her shoulders a few more times before standing and handing Judy over. Daryl hefts her up easily, waiting as Beth spreads her burping cloth across his shoulder. He looks away when her fingers brush his neck; as soon as she's finished he's spun around, heading out towards the cellblock.

“Stay here,” he growls over his shoulder.

He doesn't wait to see if she obeys him; just strides across the prison with a still-fussing baby in his arms. He adjusts his hold, muttering, “You're driving that girl ragged, kid. I know you're cute and all but that ain't fair on her.” Her little hands thump against his chest as a whine bursts from her throat. Daryl rolls his eyes. “Fucking drama queen, just like your daddy.” She squeals again, and Daryl chuckles, glancing around before kissing the top of her head.

By this time he's made it to the group's cellblock. They have a few of the Woodbury folk in here with them; the two siblings who'd first come to the prison at the wrong time, a few of the kids and their parents. Most of the block is still the group that had cleared the prison, and that's the line of cells he walks towards.

Rick's on guard duty with Hershel, Michonne's out chasing the Governor, and Maggie and Glenn's cell is dark. He sees a light flickering behind Carol's curtain, though, and strides towards it.

He raps his knuckle on the wall beside her cell, waiting for her soft “Come in,” before pushing aside the curtain. She's lying under the covers in her bunk, reading, propped up on some pillows and wearing some of the most ridiculous glasses he's ever seen.

He pauses, and snorts. “Whose granddad did you beat up to get your hands on those?”

Carol rolls her eyes, heavily magnified by the lenses, before taking them off and setting them aside with her book. “Not all of us remain in the spring of youth,” she says drily. She crosses her arms over her stomach, looking him over. “You ok?”

“Need you to take Judith,” he says.

Carol frowns. “Thought Beth had her tonight.”

“She's _had_ her the better part of the week. Girl needs rest.”

“She didn't say anything—“

“Course she didn't say anything, girl's a fucking martyr. Will you take the damn baby?”

Carol rolls her eyes again, throwing off the blanket and standing with a small groan. “Only if you realize that if she grows up talking like a pirate, it's your fault.”

“Eat my ass,” Daryl mutters, passing over the burping towel and holding Judith out, allowing Carol to take her.

“Sorry, I've gone vegetarian,” she says drily. She hefts the baby up by the armpits, looking her in the face. “Look who's getting so big,” she says in her ridiculous baby voice. Judith babbles back. “Is Beth—“ Carol begins, but Daryl's already through the curtain.

Daryl feels a spike of annoyance when he gets back to the kitchen and sees Beth's vanished. _Fool girl didn't listen to me,_ he thinks, going over to the candle still on the table and blowing it out. _Hopefully she took herself off to bed and I can leave her the fuck alone._

Just as he's standing up from the candle, though, he hears a small whimper, almost like a gasp. He turns around and there she is, huddled on the floor with her back to the wall and her head buried in her knees. She is quite clearly trying to control her tears; her shoulders shake with the effort, her hands squeezing her ankles so hard her knuckles turn white. Daryl feels a pang in the base of his gut as he looks at her—so small, so vulnerable—and he takes a deep breath before stepping forward to kneel before her.

“Beth?” he says, pitching his voice low.

Beth looks up, then quickly back down, wiping her face on the knees of her jeans. “Sorry,” she says, muffled by the fabric. “I'll be fine in a minute, you can just go on—“

“What the hell were you thinking, anyway?” Daryl asks.

This does bring Beth's head up. She looks at him, forehead scrunched. Her eyes are red and puffed from exhaustion, and as he watches a dribble of mucous slides towards her lip. She wipes at it with a sleeve, still staring at him. “Excuse me?”

“We got a prison full of people to take care of this kid and here you're workin' yourself to death over her?”

“I told you,” Beth says, “They were all busy.”

“Carol didn't even know how long you'd had her.”

“I didn't want to bother anyone,” Beth mutters, looking away from him. “Why the hell do you care, anyway? You've hardly ever spoken two words to me.”

Daryl feels another pang at that, this time higher in his chest. It's true, he's never really talked to Beth. Never talks to anyone more than he needs to, but even when he needed to, with her, he'd talk to Rick or her dad instead. It wasn't anything personal—she seemed like a good enough girl, did what she was told and held her own in a fight and on the run—but every time he thought about approaching her, talking to her, setting himself in her line of sight and open to the words spilling from her soft mouth... whenever he thought about it his stomach would go all squiggly and his head would float and his hands sweat and he much preferred the quotidian nervousness of talking to Maggie anyway.

Since they've gotten to the prison, though, since Judith, he's found them interacting more and more. Not so much speaking, at least on his end; she'd come up to him with requests for a run, like formula or diapers and once, asked with a blushing face, little plastic barrettes to hold the baby's hair up. Daryl doesn't know why that one made her so nervous—he thinks Judy looks cute as anything with those lady bug barrettes and the matching sweater he found, although he'd never tell anyone he thought so—but each time she comes to him, he's felt himself relax in her presence more and more. Not that her approach doesn't still get his heart racing and his fingers dancing with the urge to distract themselves; but now at least he's gotten used to it, can now, perhaps, think of that nervousness as something sweeter.

He's closer to her now than he's been in a long time and he feels his heart going as it always does; but the sight of her tear stained face and the small tremble of her shoulders means his own feelings don't really matter much at all.

“Told you,” he says gruffly, “Don't want the kid to suffocate when you fall asleep on top of her.” Beth sniffs, looking down. Daryl fidgets, searches for the words. “You ain't helping anyone if you kill yourself doing it,” he says quietly.

Beth glances up at him, a few more tears spilling from her eyes as she sniffs. “What does it mean if I can't do this though?” she asks softly, so soft he needs to lean in to hear, brushing his shirt against her jeans. “Y'all are risking your lives out there every day and all I've got to do is take care of one baby, and I can't even do that right. What does that mean, Daryl?”

“Means jack-shit,” he says. Beth opens her mouth to reply, but he keeps going. “Ain't no 'all' about it. Clearly there ain't, or more people'd be doing it.” He expects her to interrupt, but she just stares at him, blinking. “Ya think any of us'd risk our lives half as much as we do, we don't have something needs risking it for? That's the kid. That's _you_.” Daryl feels himself blushing furiously, but he can't let himself stop now. “You're the most important person in this fucking prison, Beth. 'Specially now we got all these new assholes to deal with.” Her mouth quirks up a bit at that, and Daryl feels some of his nervousness begin to abate. “Think anyone'd remember to take care of this kid if you weren't here? Think they'd take time off from all their 'important' shit? Place'd fucking fall apart without you. We need you healthy for that. Everyone needs some fucking rest. ” Without thinking about it, Daryl rests a hand on her knee, his thumb landing on a small tear. The heat of her skin sears him. “Don't let it get to this point again, a'right? Next time, you come get me and I'll set it straight.”

They stare at each other for a few moments in a stunned, swirling silence. Daryl's heart begins to pound again as he watches her watch him, unblinking, soaking up his words as his thumb presses on her skin.

Then her face crumples again and his heart sinks.

“Fuck, I didn't mean—“

“No, no, it's not,” Beth says, not trying to hide her tears and instead speaking through them, “it's not you, I'm just... I'm so tired, Daryl,” Beth says, liquid spilling from her eyes. She leans her forehead on her knees, wraps her arms around her shins. “I'm so tired,” she whispers.

Without pausing, without thinking, Daryl finds his hand on her face, gently tilting it up until he's looking straight into her teary eyes. “We're gonna take care of that, then. Alright? You 'n me.”

Beth hesitates, then nods. His hand goes with her, never once withdrawing from her face. He's not sure if he imagines her leaning into it.

“Help me up?” she whispers.

He nods, and pulls his hand from her cheek, swiping his thumb across the wet streaks on her face as he goes. She wipes at herself with her sleeve as he stands, offers her a hand. She smiles shakily up at him as she takes it. He pulls her up as gently as he can, but she still staggers into his chest. He's more than a little shocked when she doesn't move right away; pushes against him almost like a cat, like she's snuggling, presses her cheek to his rapidly pounding heartbeat.

“You sound like a jackrabbit,” she says, closing her eyes. Daryl waits, holding his breath. After what seems like eons her hands come up and she pushes herself away from him. She gives him a soft smile and squeezes his hand where it hangs by his side. When she starts walking, she doesn't let it go. Doesn't even let go when they attempt to navigate the doorframe and she stumbles into him again, or when they get past it and she nearly trips over a hoe someone'd left lying around cause her eyes are sliding shut.

“Christ's sake,” Daryl mutters. She looks up at him questioningly when he pulls her to a stop. Her gasp is strangled as he suddenly swings her up into his arms, knees over one forearm and her back against another. Her arms go around his neck instinctively and she holds on tight for several moments; when he starts walking and her body realizes it isn't going to fall, she relaxes a touch; by the time they get to the end of the hall she's practically melting into him.

“I feel like a princess,” Beth murmurs, nuzzling into his chest.

“Yeah, Sleeping Beauty,” Daryl says back, barely listening to himself as they cross the cellblock and he works on keeping his footsteps quiet.

“You think I'm—wait, you passed my cell.”

“I know,” Daryl says, cursing his heart for going again. “You ain't sleeping in your cell tonight.” Daryl ascends the stairs carefully. He'd never really noticed how many there are, he's so used to taking them two at a time. “Quieter up here,” he says.

He can feel her eyes on his burning face. He expects her to demand he stop, put her down, bring her back to her cell where she's safe from insomniac rednecks.

But she doesn't say a word. Just “hmm's” once, almost to herself, and rests her cheek back against him.

They have more than enough space downstairs so even with the increased population Daryl's the only one up here. None of the other bunks have been dusted or checked for bugs so there's really only one option. Heart pounding, Daryl sets Beth down on her feet outside his cell. She reaches out a hand to steady herself, easily finding his shoulder. She looks at him, shyly, almost, from the corner of her eye before stepping inside.

Daryl lingers in the doorway, not wanting to crowd her as she looks around. It's hard to see much in the gloom without a candle, but he sees her eyes catch on the wildcat pelts he's hung on the wall (looking to make a surprise blanket for Judith), and the small collection of stones and old arrowheads on his desk. He shifts from foot to foot, feeling absurdly as if her eyes are sweeping across his naked body.

“Ain't much,” he says suddenly, far louder than he means to. She looks back at him. “Ain't like yours, I mean. All decorated and shit.”

“I like it,” Beth says. She smiles. “Looks like you.”

“Hmmph.” Daryl shifts again, then jerks his chin at the bed. “Washed the blanket a few days ago, should be fine. I'll get you up before people start asking.”

“You're leaving?” Beth takes a step forward as she says it. There's a strange hint of desperation in her voice.

“Yeah,” Daryl says slowly. “You can sleep here. Quieter.”

“What about you?”

“Slept on the perch before,” Daryl grunts.

“I just...” Beth bites her lip, before dropping her gaze, shaking her head. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“It's silly, just go on.”

“Beth,” he growls warningly.

She looks up at him, cheeks flushed. “Just... if you could stay with me. Till I fall asleep. I'd like that.” She misunderstands his silence and says quickly, “I'll be out like a light, I promise, won't be more than a minute or two.”

Daryl looks at her—her thin yarn-y sweater, her white camisole, jeans with almost more rips than fabric, ponytail hanging bedraggled and beaten over her shoulder like some kind of slumbering ferret. Her eyes are still red but her tears are gone, and even in the dim their surface seems to glow.

“Lie down,” he says.

She bites her lip and nods; then after a moment goes to sit on the bed, toeing off her boots before pulling the blanket down and wiggling under it, settling into the pillow with a sigh. After a moment, Daryl goes to sit on the floor by her feet. She rolls onto her side facing him, curling her knees up towards her chest and pulling her arms above the blankets. It's something he noticed about her, that winter on the run: No matter how cold or damp it was, she'd always sleep like that, sheets yanked up to her chin but still under her armpits, like being covered wholly in fabric would be suffocating. Daryl thinks he understands the impulse, although he would personally rather be warm.

He's so lost in thought it takes him a minute to realize she's staring at him. Blood rushes his face as he shifts. “What?” he asks, defensive.

She shrugs. “Just trying to figure out how to thank you for this.” She twists her lips. “All I can think of is a friendship bracelet. What're your favorite colors anyway?”

 _Yellow and green,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say. It would give away too much.

“Take care of yourself. 'S all the thanks I need.”

Beth smiles softly, looking for a moment like her usual self. “You sound like my mama,” Beth says. “She'd always say that to my daddy when he worked too much.”

Daryl scowls, looking down. “Glad to know what you think of me,” he mutters.

Beth laughs, a high, tinkling sound that brings the flush back to Daryl's cheeks. “I know you're not my mama, Daryl.” She reaches out and takes his hand again, interlaces their fingers. “Just nice. To hear again. You know? A nice reminder.”

“Remind me to never wear that fence apron around you, get you thinking this shit.”

“Don't think my mama ever wore an apron like that. And I know you already don't wear those; I _do_ do your laundry, Daryl Dixon. You know how many hours I've spent getting the blood out of your shirts?”

Daryl grunts. “I'll wash my own damn shirts, then.”

“I'm not complaining. Just saying.” She burrows her face in the pillow, closes her eyes. “Smells like you,” she murmurs.

 _How the hell she know what I smell like,_ Daryl thinks. He realizes she hasn't let go of his hand.

“D'you think—“

“Christ, girl, a minute ago you were falling all over yourself and now you wanna chat?”

Daryl sees her eyelids move as she rolls her closed eyes. “Just wanted to say—“ She opens her eyes and looks at him. Her thumb strokes softly across the back of his hand. Her gaze draws him in. “You think I'll ever be good for anything else?” she asks. “Besides laundry, and taking care of Judith? Not that I mind doing that, just... do you think?”

“You think last winter was a dream or something?” Daryl asks incredulously. Without meaning to, his voice softens. “I think you'd be good at anything you set your mind to, Beth. You don't give up. 'S the most important thing.”

Years later, Daryl will still have this moment imprinted in his memory—Beth lying in his bunk with his hand in hers, his blanket pulled up beneath her arms; her raising their entwined fingers to kiss his knuckles, all of them, one by one; the soft way she looks at him before closing her eyes, snuggling in, pulling their joined hands to rest against her breastbone. The warm heat of her heart, pounding skin to skin.

And when Daryl wakes the next morning—an ache in his head from leaning against the bunk and a ringing in his ears from Maggie's panicked yells as she looks for her sister—it's to find her looking at him again, lids low, eyes smiling, his hand still snug in hers.


End file.
